The innocent are so few that two of them seldom meet – when they do meet, their victims lie strewn all round. – Elizabeth Bowen
The witch friend who writes the descriptions of pagan holidays for me pointed out a few months ago that Western Society has descended into a new Victorianism. As in the Victorian Era we have become shockingly hypocritical about sex and grant our governments tremendous power to suppress it while simultaneously spending tremendous amounts of time and money on it (Victorian London had the largest number of prostitutes per capita of any place and time in history). We have revived Victorian ideas of government-enforced temperance and “social progress”, and the Victorian “Cult of the Child” has returned with a vengeance. The persistent adult myth that children live in some sort of state of Divine Grace which must be protected at all costs and extended as far into adulthood as possible has experienced cyclic popularity at least since the time of the Ancient Greeks, but rarely has it been interpreted in the extreme manner which began in the 1980s. The dogma of this modern cult preaches that children are as emotionally fragile as soap bubbles and the merest hint of sexual imagery before puberty can cause irreversible trauma; its adherents also believe that teenagers (whom they equate with “children”) should be lied to, spied on or even criminally prosecuted to prevent them from engaging in any kind of sexual behavior, and some even believe that adults should not be allowed any form of entertainment or reading material which is inappropriate for even the youngest child, on the grounds that a child “might see it” and thereby be petrified as if he had looked into the eyes of the Gorgon. Child cultists can be recognized by their stated belief that any degree of tyranny is acceptable “if it saves even one child,” and by their fondness for promoting unconstitutionally broad legislation lugubriously named after dead little girls.
One of the earliest victims of this cult was comedian Paul Reubens, better known by the name of his famous character “Pee-Wee Herman”; in 1991 he was arrested in a raid of a Sarasota, Florida adult movie theater by “detectives” who perjured themselves by claiming that they had observed him masturbating yet gave erroneous details of his anatomy including the claim that he was left-handed. As regular readers know, vice cops habitually make up lurid stories in order to persecute people for consensual acts, but once the media got ahold of the story Reubens’ career was essentially over. His award-winning children’s show was pulled from television, his line of toys vanished from stores and self-proclaimed “child experts” appeared on television advising parents to tell their children that “Pee-Wee” had done a bad thing and must be punished for it (I never heard even one suggest telling kids about “innocent until proven guilty”)…all because an adult character actor out of costume had the bad luck to choose to take in an adult movie on the night some vice cops decided to get their jollies by arresting people there. Then just as he was beginning to emerge from a long period of seclusion, in 2002 Los Angeles police raided his home and charged him with “child pornography” after finding a 1960s era art photography book which included some teenage nudes. After two years of harassment all charges were dropped, but Reubens’ career is only now beginning to recover thanks largely to old fans who never deserted him and young adult fans who watched his show as children.
Reubens’ case is representative because he was never accused of any inappropriate behavior toward children; those who persecuted him seemed to feel that the mere fact that an adult man had been discovered in a harmless sexual pursuit (watching a legal adult movie in a legal public theater) made him somehow tainted, and that if children merely watched his shows or played with his toys their “innocence” might somehow be magically damaged. A similar mindset appears to be at work in the case of Melissa Petro, a 30-year-old art teacher in the Bronx who has been “reassigned” pending an “investigation” which will no doubt result in her suspension. The reason for this? She wrote an article for The Huffington Post in which she admitted to a brief flirtation with whoring.
The following article is adapted from an article in The New York Post and edited to correct for the Post’s lax journalistic standards by removing such judgmental tabloid terminology as “tattooed former hooker and stripper”, “sexcapades”, “shenanigans” and “money honey”.
The Post has learned that former sex worker Melissa Petro has been teaching art in a Bronx elementary school for three years, and though well-liked by students has perhaps unwisely posted online accounts of past sexual experiences. But earlier this month, she admitted in an essay to a short-lived job as a prostitute.
“From October 2006 to January 2007, I accepted money in exchange for sexual services I provided to men I met online in what was then called the ‘erotic services’ section of Craigslist.org,” wrote Petro on The Huffington Post, using her real name and picture. The attached biography identifies Petro, who has an MFA in creative nonfiction from The New School, as a “former sex worker, researcher, writer, educator, and feminist.”
Her revelation seems to have caused ignorant parents to believe that she is somehow different from the woman she was a few weeks ago. “I don’t want nobody that used to do that to be around my kid,” said Grace Ventura, whose son is in third grade. “People like that should not be allowed to be anywhere near children.” Yocelyn Quezada said perhaps Petro had “managed to turn her life around,” but she still fumed that a former prostitute was teaching two of her three kids. “She’s not a good role model. I do not want my daughters to find out about this,” Quezada said, “and I do not want my daughters to be around that kind of person.”
Despite predicting in one online posting that “that this would be a conversation I’d someday be compelled to have,” Petro declined twice to speak with The Post. Principal Kerry Castellano referred questions to the Department of Education’s press office, which said Petro had been reassigned to administrative duties pending an investigation. Petro’s posts also indicate that she was warned by at least two school staffers — including one administrator — that her refusal to be more cautious about her history could land her in hot water. “In an off the record conversation, a sympathetic administrator kindly asked if I couldn’t publish under a pseudonym. I wish, for her sake, I could,” Petro recently wrote in The Rumpus, an online magazine.
Petro, who earns $61,000 a year as a teacher, also wrote that a co-worker had warned her that some of her colleagues were beginning to Google her. “There have been lots of rumors going around about her for a while now,” one school worker told The Post. “I wouldn’t want my kid to be in a school where she is.”
Now, unlike many of my colleagues I can’t really say I feel sorry for Miss Petro; unlike Reubens, she went into her trouble by her own choice and with open eyes. Though she was only a whore for four months she certainly learned of the need for discretion in our profession, and by choosing to reveal her real name and picture she knew very well what would happen. I smell a lucrative book deal and perhaps even some sort of test case, and that makes it very difficult for me to think of her as a victim. What makes this case interesting is not the predictable results of her voluntary actions, but the reactions of the 21st century Child Cultists the reporter obviously hand-picked for the story. Clearly, nobody thinks that third graders are reading the Huffington Post, and since nobody questioned her ability as a teacher they obviously believe that her sexual history somehow renders her magically taboo; “People like that should not be allowed to be anywhere near children,” huffs one parent in the story, as though sexuality were a radiation which might contaminate the tissue-paper bodies of children. Like the Victorians, this woman clearly conceives of whores as monsters incapable of feminine sensibilities.
And then there’s this story, paraphrased from an AP article:
Sesame Street announced that it won’t air a taped segment featuring pop star Katy Perry appearing with the popular Muppet Elmo. The clip was previewed on Youtube and apparently sparked considerable negative feedback from people who felt that her clothing was “inappropriate” for a kid’s show. Though the clip will not air and has been removed from the official Sesame Street YouTube channel, it is still available elsewhere on YouTube and on Perry’s website.
Watch the video and tell me that you see anything intrinsically unwholesome about it. Apparently some dirty-minded people think that the slight jiggle of Perry’s tits above the top of her dress will “traumatize” young children; if that’s the case I cause irreparable damage to dozens of kids every time I walk into Wal-Mart. The problem here isn’t the fact that (like every child’s own mother) Perry has mammary glands, but rather her provocative stage persona, which even though it isn’t displayed here still magically radiates from her image and can destroy the “innocence” of children through the television set.
“if that’s the case I cause irreparable damage to dozens of kids every time I walk into Wal-Mart.”
And so where is that video???
😛
Being passed around by the male Wal-Mart employees, probably. 😀
Not fair! Lol
I heard Petro on an interview recently and yes, she is pushing a book. She stated that she was encouraged to write under a pseudonym, but she felt it was important to be honest and open about her past.
I don’t know, I have to exclude myself from the equation as I was never foolish enough to breed, but if she were teaching my nephews I’d have no objection. And I’m fairly certain my sister and brother in law would also have no issue with her past employment.
Better a educated, qualified ex-whore than an uncaring misanthrope just there to collect a paycheck.
And for the record, while I think Katy Perry is physically attractive and seems like she’d be a lot of fun…that Sesame Street segment was remarkably unremarkable.
It’s things like this that make me honestly believe raising children makes people stupid.
I would obviously agree, but apparently people who believe in invisible sex rays do not.
Is it that, or do stupid people just tend to have more kids? 🙁
I resemble that last remark!
And then there is the way that parents are immediately suspected of molesting their children if the children get caught playing doctor or some other such activity, on the grounds that only abused children would do such a thing.
Yes, because of course children are “innocent” and could NEVER have sexual feelings of any kind before puberty, and even after puberty they only feel that way because of “media saturation”. I wonder how animals manage to have sexual feelings at puberty, even though they have no mass communications?
I’ve been known to spend time (perhaps too much time) at the Internet Movie Database. One the message boards for The Blue Lagoon (1980) somebody actually asked how it was possible for the teenaged boy to masturbate, since there was nobody on the island to teach him!
My reply was “There’s a reason our arms are the length they are.”
Did you ask who taught him?
I was afraid to ask. I was afraid he might answer.
Besides, somebody beat me to it. He didn’t answer. My fears were for naught.
LOL! 😀
It’s ridiculous the way people react to the sex lives of other adults. You just know that the “think of the children” moral crusaders are a bunch of hypocrites themselves.
I remember seeing an ex-pornstar talk about being outed in her hometown. When some of the local parents found out what she used to do they banned their kids from playing with her kids, saying that they’d be a bad influence because of their mother. She found out that one of her neighbours had even told their kid not to walk past her house, as if she was some kind of dangerous monster.
To me that kind of reaction seems more likely to hurt children than the things it’s intended to protect them from.
That’s one of the reasons I’ve chosen to remain anonymous; once I become better-known in the future I want people to wonder if every pretty, educated brunette they see might be Maggie McNeill. I think it reinforces my point that we’re really just like everyone else and one can’t tell that a woman is or was a prostitute merely by looking at her. As I’ve said to people before, “you’ve probably stood next to escorts in line at the grocery store and never known it.” 🙂
I don’t think my whoredar is sufficiently developed to know that the cutie next to me at the store or a restaurant is or is not paying for her meal with money earned the old fashioned way.
As I discussed on August 15th, she doesn’t want you to. 😉
In the UK a teacher who has an ‘inappropriate’ relationship with a pupil one year under the legal age of 16 is regarded as a pedophile and punished accordingly. Recently such a teacher was sentenced to 6 1/2 years imprisonment, the sentence being to reflect the severity of the crime and to act as a deterrent.l
In the same week a man who knocked a fellow passenger senseless on an underground platform was sentenced merely to a period of ‘community service’. No suggestion here that a custodial sentence might act as a deterrent or at least get him off the streets.
Of course a teacher shouldn’t abuse a position of trust but one would have thought that losing one’s livelihood would be a sufficient deterrent. Also, the pupils in such cases are always willing participants – there is never any suggestion of pressure being exerted on them.
But it’s SEX!!! Feeding a teenage boy’s fantasies and giving him a story to talk about for the next six decades is evil and destructive of the sweet, angelic innocence which all boys of 15 are still permeated with. Clearly that’s much worse than beating someone up and possibly giving him brain injuries, just as in Louisiana giving one’s husband a blow job is a far more heinous crime than manslaughter.
Aren’t we fortunate to have such wise leaders telling us what to do? 🙁
Imagine that every teenager has a car, keys, and unlimited gasoline. You can’t take the car or the keys or the gasoline away without drastic medical intervention.
Imagine now that drivers’ ed consists mostly or entirely of telling teens “don’t drive until you are married,” along with car crash horror stories and the songs “Teen Angel” and “Tell Laura I Love Her” playing in the background.
And then we hand them, with no further instruction, driver’s licenses at their wedding receptions.
That would be drivers’ ed modeled after today’s sex ed.
I need to get back to my story about sex ed in the future, that’s modeled after drivers’ ed.
Pretty much, yes. 🙁
The story about Ms Petro is all over cnn and on tv today. Pretty sad some of the comments being made. I guess a sports figure who participated in dog fights can be reformed, but she can’t…
Why does she even need to be reformed? Because she was pragmatic? Because she recognized the sex trade is lucrative, or because she decided she wanted to do something else? The average American is as sick in the head about sex as the average radical Vegan activist is about food; he makes bizarre claims about the “morality” of a natural, biological activity and denies obvious facts in order to impose his extreme agenda on society.
I have nothing against anyone who chooses to deny himself the pleasure of certain forms of sex or certain forms of food; my issue is with those who are determined to impose their preferences on everybody else by any means necessary. 🙁
I dont personally think she needs to be “reformed”, was just making a statement about how the infamous “they” are thinking in this situation.
Oh, I realized that; the question was rhetorical. Sorry if you thought it was directed toward you! 🙂
Whether Petro blew her cover on purpose or not, I don’t know. I don’t think it’s her prostitution and stripping that got her in trouble. Since administrators at the school suggested she use a pseudonym, they were clearly aware of her past and apparently didn’t think it posed a problem with regard to her teaching children. They didn’t suspend her for that.
Nope. The real problem was her choice to exercise her First Amendment rights and talk about it. Being a hooker? No problem. Talking about it in a way that isn’t politically correct? Big problem.
If she had prostrated herself and shown sufficient shame and regret about her past, she’d probably still be teaching.
I’m sure you’re absolutely right. It was the fact that she was unrepentant which was the deal-breaker. 🙁
Or claimed that she’d been threatened and beaten and thoroughly forced into this depraved life of degrading sin.
But yeah, it does seem that it was hunky-dory as long as the parents didn’t find out.
Or claimed that she’d been threatened and beaten and thoroughly forced into this depraved life of degrading sin.
Yeah, but then she’d have to change her name to “Linda Lovelace” or “Traci Lords”.
Tracy Lords. GGGRRR
Oh, but don’t you know she was abused? Too bad there’s no eye-rolling icon on here.
Ms McNeill, first of all, I agree with the points you make in your article here. But here’s a question on which I’d like to know your opinion. I don’t think that the ‘concerned parents’ who protest against an ex-prostitute teaching their children etc. are concerned per se with mysterious emanations from her skin that might besmirch and contaminate their kids. No — I think they’re afraid said kids might come to know that their teacher is an ex-prostitute from the e-mail, from the articles in the press, from comments by their parents or their friends’ parents… In other words, what they’re afraid of is something more realistically possible than magic.
Even if said children did come to know that their teacher was a prostitute, I don’t think this would be a big deal, though.
Goodness, Asehpe, I was being facetious about the “sex rays”! I was trying to humorously call attention to the fact that people can’t really explain how a teacher being an ex-hooker, or a comedian watching porn in his spare time, or a singer performing in risque videos when she isn’t doing ones for kids, somehow causes harm to children. They just assume that it will, so it might as well be “sex rays” as anything else. 🙂
I got it, Ms McNeill. Sorry if I seem too ‘serious’ (it’s a style problem… and it’s the first time I comment here. I’ll try to be more facetious in the future :-).
But my point is that it’s better to understand how your enemy’s head works — it makes it easier to explain (and perhaps fight against, counterargue the assumptions of) their behavior.
If they’re not afraid of rays but of their children getting to know something, then they’re afraid of children’s knowledge. If the kids get to know what this particular comedian was doing… or what that teacher was up to… they may start asking questions that I, as a parent, don’t want to face. That I can’t deal with. That they shouldn’t be asking (because, as you point out, ‘we all know’ that ‘children are sweet innocent angels and must remain that way’).
Worse yet: they might be giving the children examples of behavior that they might be curious about — and they shouldn’t! Because children shouldn’t be thinking about what it feels like to go to a private booth in a sex shop! Or what it feels like to have sex for money! They shouldn’t, they shouldn’t, they shouldn’t! They might (god forbid) start doing these things, too! Monkey see (or hear about), monkey do!
All of this, of course, because (their subconscious might think) I suck so much as a parent that I wouldn’t possibly know how to deal with a child asking me ‘these questions’. I wouldn’t be able to tell him/her what to do, how to tell right from wrong…
No! The environment around my children has to be SANITIZED! Because I don’t KNOW how to deal with their REACTIONS to the FILTH that is OUT THERE! Do you HEAR ME?…
Etc. etc. etc.
Or so, at least, is my current model of their internal dilemmas. 🙂
It sounds like a pretty close approximation, Asephe. 🙂
Thanks!
By the way, Maggie (OK, no Ms McNeill), you do have a wonderful site here, full of interesting thoughts and ideas. I’m toying with the idea of going through all your old posts and perhaps adding a comment here and another there.
Also… if there’s something that I as an individual can do to support sex workers’ rights via the Internet, let me know.
Thank you very much! I myself am amazed at how it’s grown.
As for what you can do, here are a few suggestions. Read a number of sex worker blogs and sites; I’ve got a number linked in the right column. Ask questions as you have done here. Post in online discussions about sex work on more mainstream boards, including online newspaper stories quoting prohibitionist propaganda, and link to articles or columns from my blog and those of other sex workers (or the SWOP site, or Bound, Not Gagged) which give a contrary viewpoint so that others may find and read those articles. Participate in decriminalization debates, and donate to organizations which fight for our rights. 🙂
Will do 🙂
I’ve already posted comments on ‘feminist’ topics like prostitution, pornography, rape and false rape accusations, etc. in other sites (in fact, posting comments on the latter topic in the comments thread to Dan Savage’s reaction to FurryGirl’s/Feminisnt’s post on the Julian Assange case is what brought me here…). I first became interested in the whole sex workers topic about a year ago, when I found some of them on YouTube by accident (Divinity33372 and YeOldeHeretic) and watched some of their videos. More importantly, I found videos by radfems (neofeminists I think you call them) against prostitution and pornography that made me have a few discussions with some of these people — and I was impressed and dismayed by how much more immature and ungrounded they were than the sex workers there.
I’ve already donated money to De Rode Draad, the sex workers’ association of the Netherlands (where I live); but somehow the debate and discussions in America seem more interesting (at least more passionate, from both sides). Which American organization would you recommend?
I will mention your texts as soon as I get a chance. Meanwhile, keep up the great work! Have you ever thought about writing a book, by the way — say, an in-depth discussion of the problems with prohibitionist arguments? Sometimes I day-dream about that myself — I’m a human scientist, albeit in a totally different field (linguistic anthropology), so the idea of writing a book on a topic I find interesting comes naturallly, despite not being a specialist… (I realize, though, that in the modern world blogs could actually be more effective.)
SWOP has the most varied programs and are doing some of the most visible outreach, so it’s probably your best choice. 🙂
I have indeed thought of doing a book; in fact a number of my early columns were originally written as chapters for that book and I just modified, edited or re-parsed them as columns. What I’m kind of hoping for is that a publisher will discover my blog, like what he sees and offer me a deal.
Linguistic anthropology? Like tracing human migration through language shifts? I’ve followed popular articles on the research into Nostratic and I find it fascinating. 🙂
What I do has more to do with South America and its inhabitants. The linguistic history of the place (especially the Amazon basin) is virtually unknown, and research on it might cast light on the entire prehistory of the place. There are some fascinating books on the topic.
Nostratic is an interesting hypothesis, and a hotly debated one in my field. Personally, I think it hasn’t been demonstrated — despite the work of Russian linguists like Starostyn, Gamkrelidze & Ivanov, and the beliefs and similar hypothesis of others like Joseph Greenberg or Merritt Ruhlen, the factual basis is still not sufficiently dense for chance not to be a possible explanation for the similarities they’ve found. (An acquaintace of mine, Dr. Lyle Campbell, has written an interesting book on Nostratic and its problems.) I tend to be what people in my field call a ‘splitter’ rather than a ‘lumper’ — i.e. I like hypothesis about language relatedness to have a rich and broad factual basis before accepting them as proved.
If I knew a non-academic publisher who works with gender and society, I’d recommend your writing, Maggie. It is certainly worth it.
In keeping with the topic of “thinking about the children”, I have a question for you. You said once that as a working girl you never took clients younger than 18 — presumably because of statutory rape laws. Now, if the laws would allow it, would you take younger clients (up to what age?), or do you have other reasons to be against it?
No, the age of consent in Louisiana is 17, not 18, and before the “child molestation” hysteria got into full swing that was never enforced against women. I just felt it was the right thing; in fact, at the beginning of my career I wouldn’t accept under 21.
I think you might be onto something here. Yes, the fear that the kids will find out.
And what harm is done if the kids find out? Why, the same “harm” that was done when schools were racially integrated: the kids found out that “those people” are pretty much like everybody else. The teacher who used to be a prostitute isn’t really any different from the teacher who used to be a waitress.
Indeed, Sailor Barsoom. (Is your name an homage to Edgar Rice Burroughs, by the way?)
It’s been my opinion for a while that there is a divided, Janus-faced, contradictory vision of sex in American society (it’s good but it’s bad, it’s healthy = you should do it, but it’s dirty = you shouldn’t talk about it, it’s OK with love but not without, because with love it takes you to the stars but without love it reduces you to a mere animal, “la bête à deux culs (= the two-assed beast)”, etc.)
Because of this, ‘sex is VERY important.’ ‘Sex is different.’ It’s not like other activities (which is why you can’t sell it). It’s not like other pleasures. Sex is rape. Sex is… complicated. Sex is… broken hearts. Sex is… bodily fluids. Sex is… insecurity about cock/boob size. Sex is… doubts about one’s normality. Sex is… who I really am. So, am I gay? Oh no–that changes EVERYTHING!…
Well, if sex is so complicated… who on his/her right mind would want the poor, innocent children to come even close to this mess? No, it’s better to let them play Nintendo Wii war games, or bully each other at school, or worry about past participles and quadratic equations. But sex? No–a mess. It will make them ‘crazy.’
I would love if this could change in the near future… but I’m not holding my breath. Too many confused threads in there. Some people thought the sexual revolution would change that, but no, it’s still going to take generations to disentangle all those knotty threads…
To Edgar Rice Burroughs, yes, and also to Bishoujo Senshi Sailormoon, my favorite anime.
When somebody asks me what Sailor Barsoom would look like, I say “either Sailor Mars with red skin, or Dejah Thoris in a sailor suit, but really, could you tell the difference?” Because that sounds so much better than “a hairy, chubby, middle-aged guy… in a sailor suit.”
As for the rest of your post… right on.
Ah yes, Such interesting combination Sailor Barsoom’s handle is. ^_^
One part famous early 20th century author (better known for Tarzan than his earlier Mars (“Barsoom”) series) plus the most famous magical girl Japanese anime ever to be targeted at 13 year old girls!
One half real sophistication, one half “gonna count against you if the cops ever take your computer”.
(I tease with the intent of good-natured ribbing only, honest! ^_-)
Now that I think about it, ERB’s Mars series is actually kind of interesting in a blog that mostly focuses on our cultural attitudes towards sex and sexuality.
Consider: An entire planet where no one wears clothes, save for leather harnesses to hold weapons and ornaments, and thick cloaks for chilly Martian nights.
Despite this, there’s virtually no mention of anything one could call overtly sexual in all 10 books. No association between nudity and sex whatsoever.
You realize if ERB were alive to day
A) He couldn’t have written that, because nobody today can disassociate nudity and sex so completely such that they could write 10 books full of naked people without feeling obligated to make it sexual.
B)He’d have a heck of a time finding a publisher who would not through the manuscript into the “erotic novel” bin as soon as he realized the whole planet was naked.
Hinoron, did you see my column of September 12th, 2011? Something tells me you’ll appreciate it. 😉
WOO! Another fan!!
I have to leave soon, but when I get back tonight I’m going to link to a .pdf called Nakedness on Mars. I think the guy is really reaching a few times, desperately trying to make Barsoom more sexual than it is. But it is an interesting new way to look at the series, and in a few cases I suspect he’s right (Tara and that slave girl…).
When I read the series for the second time in my early teens, I saw a lot of sex in it; when I read it for the third time in my early twenties I saw even more. Some of that may have been me (like Tara and the slave girl), but in others it certainly isn’t (the Thuvia question, Tara assaulted by Luud’s rykor, Tal Hajus’ lechery and Tul Axtar’s harem and babe corps).
I’ve been home a few hours now. Yarg, this day! But, I got everything done I had planned. I just had to… never mind. It’s boring.
OK, I found Nakedness on Mars. This link will take you to ERBzine 3177, which introduces the essay and also has the link to download the .pdf itself.
I first became interested in Edgar Rice Burroughs because of Robert Heinlein — if you’ve read Heinlein’s “The Number of the Beast”, you’ll remember the main characters were named Carter and Dejah Thoris… Given the reference to Burroughs, this took me to “A Princess of Mars”, which, from previously read criticism, I had thought would be something trashy, like an Ed Wood movie; I was surprised by how interested it made me feel. I’m currently on vol. 4 for the Barsoom series, “Thuvia, Maid of Mars”. 🙂
Thuvia is my favorite character in the Mars series; I was always able to identify with her much more than I could with the incomparable Dejah Thoris. 🙂
This reminds me: I’m working on something else, and if it turns out well, will send it to you for the anthology. The first thing I sent, the harlot isn’t really the main character, for all that the little story is told from her point of view.
This one is set on another world, with low gravity (why all the Burroughs talk reminded me of it). The main character is a prostitute of the sacred variety. She’s basically renting her services to an expedition (three males and her) for a double share in any profits made.
But I got to tell you: she ain’t human, nor are her clients. And no, it isn’t Vertilya.
If I can write about penguin whores, I see no problem with that. 🙂
Even one of the supporters of sex hysteria – Sharon Maxwell (“The Talk: What Your Kids Need to Hear From You About Sex”) – says that lying to your children (and omission is a form of lying), destroys their trust in you as a reliable source of information.
What she and other hysterics don’t realize is that lying includes not teaching children elementary logic so they can think for themselves (claiming they’re too young to think for themselves), and not telling children both sides of every story.
Ironically, parents try to keep kids ignorant so they are easier to control, but that makes kids easier for the mass media (and the fat cats who control mass media) to control when they grow up and become parents themselves. The myth that children need to be “protected” from the truth is the vicious cycle that keeps the aristocrats in power.
“What she and other hysterics don’t realize is that lying includes not teaching children elementary logic so they can think for themselves (claiming they’re too young to think for themselves), and not telling children both sides of every story.”
Can’t teach what they don’t understand themselves, now can they?
🙁
Coddling vrs. Exposure.
I’ll weigh in here as a child cultist using spying and lies to prevent irreversible trauma, tainting, and petrification of children. /end sarcasm.
Mostly when my three kids were younger, I welcomed discussions of weirdos and deviants they’d crossed paths with. Coddling cripples kids, but exposure is best done in an age appropriate, matter of fact way, in the context of their family and life experiences.
I would have resented my kids being taught by a open former hooker. My own values wrt. sex are far afield from a prostitutes beliefs.. ** It would be very difficult to maintain that Parent-Child-Teacher triad of support and respect. I could never have gotten beyond that knowledge to be supportive of the teacher.
Now, if a prostitute/teacher remained discreet, was never found out, never oozed out deviant comments, maintained nurturing sensibilities, then………..no harm, I guess.
My kids were cared for occasionally by their aunt (my sister) who was once a hooker in NV, before her schizophrenia came to light. My sister’s weirdnesses were addressed as they came up.
BRACE YOURSELF FOR HARSHNESS
** You assert that repulsion of prostitutes is puritanical, theological, political cultural based. You see it as a social construct, correct ?
I doubt that. I think it runs deeper into genetic neurochemical inheritance. I think we interpret prostitution as a sexual perversion, just like homosexuality. Your Cave Lady ancestors survived to birth you because they coupled with a male who offered provision and protection. When we see a young women with a baby and husband, we see hope for the future. When we see a young woman whoring herself, we see a loss of fertility, a biological perversion. It repulses at a deep unconscious brain level.
JZ, you may be right; even in patriarchal societies where prostitution was accepted such as the Romans, whores were still considered “outsiders”. But your comparison to homosexuals is an apt one: I am personally very turned off by the sight of male homosexual behavior; it “skeeves me out” big time. However, that’s a gut-level reaction and does not affect my treatment of homosexual men. I always use the “Spinach Analogy”: I find spinach disgusting; I hate the way it smells and I can’t even watch it being eaten. But my husband loves it, and I am certainly not repelled by him for being a spinach-eater (though I do ask him to brush his teeth before kissing me).
Tolerance does not require that we like what minorities do, only that we tolerate it as long as it doesn’t hurt other people. I personally think drug use is self-destructive and kind of stupid, but I’m in favor of decriminalization because my aversion to it is NOT sufficient grounds for me to be empowered to stop others from doing it.
I’ve quoted this several times recently, but it’s too appropriate to pass up: “Individual rights are not subject to a public vote; a majority has no right to vote away the rights of a minority; the political function of rights is precisely to protect minorities from oppression by majorities (and the smallest minority on earth is the individual).” – Ayn Rand (1905-1982)
One key to addressing this issue lies, I think, in what typically eludes us as humans. While we are subject to biologically-intrinsic behaviors and to “instincts”, we, apparently unlike other mammals with similar instincts, are also wired with self-awareness and higher-consciousness which allows us to act and behave other than according to instincts. Meaning, for example, that while I might experience an instinctive urge for sex with many women I see, I can choose to NOT act upon that instinctive urge.
Certainly our “feelings” and “gut instincts” are significant and warrant our serious consideration — they do serve to warn us of dangers, for example — but, our ability to reason and objectively (as possible) rationalize means we can ignore those instincts when objectivity shows they’re unnecessary to follow,
So, JZ’s “threat” hypothesis about prostitution might be true, and yet, since objectivity shows that prostitution poses no real threat to societies, that instinct might just need to be recognized as one of those “instincts” which rationality can safely override.
By the way — I’m a 58-year-old blue-collar male, an agnostic/skeptic, married 34 years, six biological kids (all now adults) with my spouse. We have had an open marriage for the past twelve years; my wife and daughters have done online sex work .
“When we see a young woman whoring herself, we see a loss of fertility, a biological perversion. It repulses at a deep unconscious brain level.”
This doesn’t make sense to me. If the loss of fertility were an issue, why wouldn’t people recoil at the thought of women using the pill? Whores throughout history may have had a lower ratio of children to sexual encounters, but they would not likely have suffered from diminished fertility. I can think of some other reasons for this, however.
Firstly, the disliking most people feel towards whores probably comes from the perception of them as dirty. If you have access to scholarly journals, you may want to check out Thornhill’s “Zoonotic and Non-Zoonotic Diseases in Relation to Human Personality and Societal Values,” where it’s noted that across countries, female sociosexuality is correlated negatively with parasite richness. In other words, in areas where there are fewer parasites (both human-only and multihost), women have more promiscuous attitudes. Even though whores today may be cleaner than amateurs, I don’t know how likely that was to be be the case in human evolutionary history.
Secondly, I’ve heard it argued that women benefit by keeping the cost of sex high. So long as men are required to enter into a long term public contract in order to enjoy sex, they can be trusted to support women. Women in general would therefore be threatened by whores because they undercut the price of sex, while simultaneously offering better services (due at least in part to specialization). With this in mind, then, your cavewomen would have had little reason to dislike a whore for her lack of fertility, but they would have had every reason to regard her as a threat to their source of provisioning and protection.
strong libertarian streak in you.
Oh, I’d say it’s more than just a streak! 🙂
What? Maggie’s streaking?
What, again?. ^_^
Also, at ages 24, 22, and 19, my kids are not yet aware of their aunt’s whoring past. I’ll tell them after she dies. This is out of respect for my sister. They are age appropriate enough, and worldly enough to digest it and still love her, I think, but I’m sure she’d feel a loss of respect in their eyes.
Do you agree with this?
Yes, I would say that’s wise; really, you might consider not telling them at all unless it somehow became necessary. If she wants them to know, she’ll probably speak up herself.
I can’t help wondering. Although it is extremely unlikely, what if one of these very conservative, prudish parents managed to successfully shield their daughter from EVER seeing a human penis until it was time for her to be married. After a lifetime of fighting against her hormones and being indoctrinated that sex was evil, wouldn’t it be more traumatic for a repressed woman to see her husband’s dick for the first time than for a young girl to accidentally glimpse one?
That did used to happen to middle-class English girls in the Victorian Era sometimes, and yes it was often quite traumatic.
It still happens! I read an article a couple years ago about the non-existence of sex ed in China; one lady actually used to believe she came from her mother’s armpit. Most women admitted that they didn’t think that baby penises & adult penises were no different and well, frankly, the wedding night was a shocker for them all.
This is one of the articles on the web about it, I don’t remember where exactly I read it (maybe the newspaper, just maybe, and it’ll be too difficult to find it in their web archives)
http://www.newsweek.com/chinas-sex-ed-problem-63511
[…] can contaminate surrounding objects, and sex work produces such intense levels that sex workers cannot be allowed near children ever again for the rest of their lives. Even objects we handle (including money and virtual […]
Well, if Freud is to be believed, children do feel sexual desire as well as pleasure; it’s just that they express it differently as their bodies & minds are not completely developed yet. Even a little child clinging to one parent and saying, “Mommy/Daddy is aaaaalll mine! I’m not sharing with you,” to the other parent is one of the ways of a child’s expression of sexual desire. Just look up Freud’s Psychosexual Development.
We’re following most of the Freudian theories and even base other theories on them, so why not believe this one as well & treat children like the mini adults they are!
[…] Maggie McNeill wrote in […]